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Three Shot Dead in Afghan Capital བོད་སྐད།

25.10.2008

Steve Herman

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Three Shot Dead in Afghan Capital བོད་སྐད།

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Afghan police say the two top officials of an
international shipping company and one of their security guards were shot dead
Saturday in front of their office in Kabul. VOA correspondent Steve Herman
reports from the Afghan capital the killings are the latest in a series of
attacks on foreign nationals there.

Afghan officials say the two
Westerners were gunned down as they sat in a vehicle in front of the
German-owned freight company DHL.

On the scene, General Mirza Mohammad
Yarmand, the director of the Interior Ministry's criminal investigation
department, told reporters the shots were fired from inside the DHL
office.

General Yarmand says one of the guards at the DHL facility fired
at the vehicle, killing the two foreign company officials and their Afghan
bodyguard. He says a motive has not been established.

The DHL office is
located at a busy intersection across from the Iranian Embassy, in an upscale
section of Kabul.

Police and diplomats say the two DHL officials - the
country director and deputy director -- were from Britain and South
Africa.

Officials of Saladin, a British-based private security company
confirmed to VOA News that the Afghan guard who died was employed by them.

Authorities say two other Afghans, standing outside the DHL office, were
wounded in the shooting.

Police detained 13 people, including DHL employees
and guards. Interior Ministry officials say they are questioning them to
determine whether the shooting stemmed from an "internal dispute" or outsiders
were involved.

The latest violence comes less than a week after the
shooting death of Gayle Williams, a British-South African national working for a
Christian charity in Kabul. Taliban insurgents claimed they attacked the young
woman because her British organization, SERVE Afghanistan, was spreading
Christianity.

The charity denied it was proselytizing but decided to
close its operation in the country following the killing.

Security has
deteriorated in the capital and many parts of the country. Taliban insurgents
and criminal gangs are blamed for a recent wave of killings and kidnappings
targeting Afghans and foreigners.

Afghan authorities say several
foreigners have been abducted in the past few days in the country. Among them
are two Bangladeshi development workers in Ghazni province and two Turkish
engineers hired to erect a communications tower near the Pakistani border in
Khost province.